594 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
represents a “‘throat-piece,” which is subject to severe wear, and which can be easily 
renewed at an expense of a few cents. On the side of the standard a flange or kind of 
shelf jis shown, which assists in elevating and pulverizing the subsoil. When such a 
Fig. 18. 
plow is drawn in a deep ditch, a chain from three to six feet long extends from the end 
of the beam to the whiifletree. If oxen are employed, the draught-chain is lengthened 
at pleasure. 
A cast-iron ditching scraper.—Figure 19 represents a cast-iron scraper, or “ ox-shovel,” 
employed in excavating large ditches. It is provided with an iron bail, as shown, in 
lieu of a log-chain, which is frequently used. Such scrapers are comparatively light 
: and strong, and are made of 
Fig. 19. various sizes. The inside 
Fa should be kept as bright as 
the mold-board of a plow. 
When not in use, the surface 
should be washed clean and 
covered with a little linseed 
or cotton-seed oil, or with 
fresh tallow, to prevent rust- 
ing. When alog-chainis em- 
ployed instead of a bail, a 
wooden stretcher should be 
used to hold the chain apart, 
so that the earth will slide 
- nore easily into the imple- 
ment. 
Gearing a team to work near a 
ditch.—After a ditch is about a 
foot deep, a horse or a mule, if possessed of much spirit, will be afraid to travel near the 
bank! It isa good practice to provide a double whiffletree, eight feet long from the center 
of one single whiffletree to the other. Then a light “ jockey-stick,” or coupling-bar, about 
seven feet long, is tied between the bits of the two horses to hold their heads the desired 
distance apart. A piece of pine, basswood, or any other light wood, one and a quarter 
inches square midway between the ends, tapered to three-quarters of an inch square at 
the ends, will be found about the right dimensions. By this arrangement, two horses or 
two mules attached to a plow may each travel more than three feet from the bank of 
a deep ditch. A person leads one horse carefully at the proper distance from the bank 
of the ditch. The other horse is kept in his correct place by means of the coupling- 
pole. If oxen are employed, procure a stick of yellow willow, basswood, or white- 
wood, six inches square; bore the holes for the bows as for a yoke, and dress out a sad- 
dle at each end to fit the necks of the oxen. Grea care should be exercised in turning 
a team around, and in crossing a ditch, that the animals do not step so closely to the 
edge of the bank that it will cave in. By using a chain of two, three, or four feet in 
length, between the double whiffletree and the plow, a good team will move along 
steadily, without pulling or hauling through fear, thus enabling a plowman to turn up 
the compact earth in the bottom of a three-foot ditch faster than ten men can dig it up 
with picks. As the depth of the ditch increases, the chain between the plow and 
whifiletrees must be lengthened. 4 
How to make large open drains.—The most economical way to make a large open drain 
is to do almost all the excavating with a plow and dirt-scraper. For example, stake 
out a section, say thirty or forty rods long, and with a plow mark out a land twelve 
